Carbon Collapse

The “Carboniferous Period” (290 to 360 million years ago) was a time before most dead plant matter underwent decomposition. Especially woody plants, as lignin is a major component of wood. Only white-rot fungi and a hand full of other organisms figured out the key to crack the lignin nut but not in those times.

Because wood of dead trees never decomposed, carbon never cycled back to the atmosphere and remained locked in a mire of fallen logs that some think were layers a kilometer thick or more.

So much carbon sequestration occurred that global cooling set loose; CO2 levels had crashed to where earth’s atmosphere couldn’t keep warm. The trees caused a climate crisis, and the trees paid for it dearly. Entire tropical forests extincted themselves in what we call the Carboniferous Rain-forest Collapse.

What happened to all those trees? They live on today as modern coal seams.

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